KIRKUS REVIEW

A
collection of short stories examines marriage, fatherhood, and divorce from a
variety of angles.

In
this volume, Ackerman (Write Screenplays
that Sell, 2014, etc.) explores familiar territory with fresh eyes. His
stories follow characters approaching the end of a relationship or enduring its
immediate aftermath. Relationships between parent and child, husband and wife,
or even a family of rabbits—the author places them all under his microscope
precisely at their moments of transformation. The collection strongly recalls
the conflicted, masculine themes and anxieties of John Updike, Saul Bellow, and
Philip Roth, but mostly Updike. Ackerman shares Charles Bukowski’s love of the
racetrack (the setting for “Incidental Contact” and “The Dancer Horse”), but
not his passion for heavy boozing and prostitution. At times, there are dashes
of Haruki Murakami’s surrealism, as in the title story or the opener, “Trim,”
in which a woman starts to appear regularly at the protagonist’s house and give
him haircuts. In every story, the author walks a thin line between
sentimentalism and emotional revelation; the collection slips into both sides
equally. “The Dancer Horse,” in which a man goes home with a woman he met at a
horse race only to change his mind, takes itself too seriously and fails to
feel authentic. “General Doolittle's Raid Over Tokyo” would be an exquisite tale of a marriage if
it weren’t wedded to a melodramatic incest plot (incest, oddly, is a fairly
common theme in the book). But when Ackerman is at his best, as in “Roof
Garden” or “Leash,” he captures an elusive sensation of loss to marvelous
effect. The former story follows a man spending the day with his daughter
before he tells her about his decision to leave his wife; it would fit nicely
in an Updike collection. The latter is a much-welcome deviation from the other
tales. “Leash” focuses on a woman who must care for her estranged daughter’s
dog after she dies in a car accident. It’s an impressive piece effusing genuine
empathy, and it proves Ackerman is capable of more than the male-centered
stories he writes so comfortably.

Engaging
tales that should please fans of 20th-century American male authors.

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